My brother's Eulogy for Dad

Once upon a time there were 2 brothers and 2 sisters... the Brothers were from the Mar Family and the Sisters are from the Ong Family... Like Magic in some cosmic event in our Universe, my Father, Henry married my Mom, Susan in Canton, China while my Uncle Jack married my Aunt Betty in San Francisco, California...their Unions were not planned or arranged...  You might say that the Planets were aligned to perfection for the 2 beautiful couples and yet some might say it was because of divine intervention... In my Mar Family, we simply called it "LOVE"... and if you have ever seen them together, you would know how true that is....for some things in Life are just meant to be...

My memories of Dad goes all the way back to my early life in China... Times were very hard... We were just barely getting by with Mom as a school teacher and Dad as an engineer ... I was 3 years old and totally unaware of things and the sacrifices my parents were making on behalf of my Sister, Diana and me... Mom would later say that on many many days, they won't eat so Diana and I could eat...Uncle Jack and Aunt Betty would always help by sending money from America so we could survive... so did my Grandma and Aunt Frances from Hong Kong...Such were the conditions in China, but most importantly however, we were together as a Family...

As a child, I remembered I always looked forward to Dad coming home from work... he would bring home really cool drawings of buildlings and factories on tracing paper that he was working on ...To this day, I still remember him showing me his drawing pens and pencils and other drafting tools...He would draw very late into the night... and sometimes he would do a few wonderful drawings for me before he went to work in the morning...I was always hoping that he would teach me how to draw like he did someday...

But then one cold autumn day, I still remember like it was just yesterday.... we were at a train station where we were going on a very long trip... Up to that point in my life, we always traveled together as a family... but that day was very different... I could see it on Mom's face and I could see it on Dad's face...I could not remember the words that were spoken that dark day for all I could remember was wondering  ... why is Dad waving to us in the cold from outside the train through the glass window... why was he not seated inside the train with us where it was nice, warm and comfortable...  As our train slowly started to move away, my Dad walked along outside our window so he could still see us... I was asking myself wouldn't it be easier and way more simple if Dad just got into the train with us....   As our train gained more speed, my Dad's face got smaller and smaller... until we can see him no longer... and just like that, my Dad was gone from our lives...I was 3 and my sister was 2 months old.. I learned for the first time that day, Life is not always easy and not always simple...

I still remembered that train ride for it seemed like an eternity... I looked out the window and saw a new world I've never seen before... buildings of houses and factories that looked just like what my Dad had drawn so beautifully...  I stared at all the shiny steel railroad tracks and was mesmerized by the shapes and patterns they made when they went by... but everything seemed dark, sad and gray... because for the very first time, Dad was not with us.... and we would not see him again for another 17 years...

My Mom, sister Diana and I traveled to America and lived with my Uncle Jack and Aunt Betty here in Salinas...we were extremely fortunate and blessed for they took us in as their own... The Mar Home in America is in a TV shop where my Grandma Mae, Aunt Frances and our cousin Gene also lived.. it was a house where 3 generations stayed as one Family... with 3 birds and 6 loyal dogs at various times... It's home of love, hope, compassion, sacrifice, endearment, devotion, determination, dedication, humility and gratitude... a home that Dad would surely want for us...

But in the mid 1960's, China was in turmoil... it's the time of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong, the little Red Book... time of the notorious Gang of Four, the infamous Red Guard... time of political kaos, torture, imprisionment, persecution, and even executions... my Dad was caught up in all of that while my sister and I were learning our ABCs in America... Because, he was an engineer and educated, he was sent to rehab centers to be "re-educated.."  To the West, we call these concentration camps or simply torture chambers... As we would learn later, even the letters Mom, my sister and I sent to my Dad in China were read and censored by the prison guards to add to the fuel for his " re-education..."

It's clear why my Dad was not able to join us on that train ride that day... it was a sacrifice he and Mom made so my sister and I can have a better and more hopeful life in America...but he was to suffer the pain and the consequences of our Freedom...with his Heart and Soul through his blood, sweat and tears....


In America, we are :

Free to Dream...
and we can Dream to Free...
for your Heart & Soul remind us all to be...

It's 1978 and I found myself scribbling these words down while I was taking my final exam in calculus at UC Berkeley with some 350 other students all around me...I remember the Professor telling us on day 1 that many of us would not make it to the next year... As I was daydreaming during my exam, I wondered what my Dad was doing in China and if he had to go through the same misery as I did just so he could draw those really cool pictures of buildings and factories... I learned later that as hard as that first year at Berkeley was, it's all gravy and a walk in the park compared to what my Dad was going through...It was also on this day after the final exam that I wondered if I would ever see my Dad again...

Life can be Magic and full of Miracles...by 1979, the U.S. and China somehow become friends ... and we received a letter from Dad that he is finally coming to join us in America... When we first saw him at the airport, he was dressed in a blue suit and tie... we barely recognized him for he was only about 90 lbs... The young face I last saw at the train station some 17 years ago was gone... his face was lined with stresses of Life during those many tortureous years in China for the sacrifice he made on our behalf... He was very scholarly and seemed rather shy. Physically he looked very fragile and he spoke very little about his time in China and never talked about his "Re-education" experience during those brutal years of the Cultural Revolution. It was too painful for him to talk about and it was clear to us he did not want to remember...

I remember that the very first movie Diana and I took our Dad to was the second Star Wars... ironically it's a movie about how an evil Empire had kept a father from his son and daughter... We stood in line for hours and just talked about school, friends, summer work in the strawberry fields and onion sheds, and yes, about Mom too and how they met... It occurred to Diana and I that despite his pain and suffering in China, he was still very Young at Heart full of optimism and Life...Dad must have liked the Star Wars movie just as much as we did because when we suggested we watch it again... he replied with an enthusiastic 'okay' and we stood in line again for hours talking about Life and waiting for Yoda again to do his Magic Force... It was apparent to Diana and I that we had one cool Dad who was just like us kids... Young at Heart, free-spirited and very fun...

My Dad worked hard for many years at Motorola as a technician... he loved Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Mahler and Tchaikovsky...for he had  great taste in music and art...We did things just like other fathers and sons... like watching Joe Montana throw that perfect pass to John Taylor in that comeback win in Super Bowl 23... We both loved watching Air Jordan do his Magic stuff on NBA Hoops...We painted fences and worked on many home projects... He can cook a really good Chinese-style spare-ribs with black bean sauce... and my favorite... Hum Ha Jing Ju Yuk...

After I graduated from Berkeley, I worked in architecture and engineering like my Dad... Unlike school where we were graded with A,B,C,D or Fs, in the real world, there's always a fine line between success and failure... You either succeed or you fail... and there's not much in between... if you succeed, you may be lucky and get called back again.... but if you fail, you will never be asked to work again...such was the way of the architecture work in my World...no one in my family seemed to understand the nature of my work...., but my Dad knew...and he was always there for me on some of those crazy project deadlines... for we went on many many adventures together....

The year was 1997 and I was standing with my Dad on Treasure Island that was the site of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge - East Span... The Bridge Boss at T.Y. Lin International wanted me to help them build all the concept design models for the new Bay Bridge... For a year and a half, my Dad was always there for me and gave all his Heart & Soul along with his blood sweat and tears on that project...  We did 12 models during the design phase- all 8 feet long... During the time of the bridge design, not only was he helping with the construction of the models, he also cooked my meals and made sure I ate...  To this day, I can still see him working so quietly with his head down helping to bring life to the new Bay Bridge design. I remembered when the Bridge Boss met my Dad after one of the Design #5 Deadlines..., he was amazed at the Magic my Dad had created with his hands... for he did most of the Bridge Cabling and made sure all the cables were true and as straight as an arrow... However, Design #12 proved to be the most difficult and harshest of all... it was the Final Design but because of the timeframe set by Caltrans and Metropolitan Transportation Commission, we had only 4 days to complete the 8-foot model. I remembered we got the drawings on a Wednesday and it had to be finished on the following Monday. My Dad and I worked on it at a frenzy pace without much food and sleep. There was absolutely no time for panic... for there were moments when I truly wished that Time could stop... But with my Dad working beside me, we somehow got the Design Model #12 finished and delivered in the nick of time... #12 is the design that was finally approved by Caltrans, MTC and the State and one that is presently under construction and scheduled for completion in 2 more years...I was on the new Bay Bridge Roadway and her Tower 3 months ago and it looked just like our design model we built together.. I wished my Dad could have been there with me that day...

It's now 2 years later in 1999, when I got a call from Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville. They needed a design model for their new Headquarters Building...

I knew it was going to be a major challenge and I was well aware of the Pixar Boss as a Perfectionist and Visionary Genius... So again, I asked my Dad for his help...First, he asked who this Pixar Boss was... I told Dad that he was also the CEO of another company in Cupertino called Apple... then my Dad knew who I was talking about... Working on Pixar made working on the Bay Bridge seem like a breeze... My Dad and I found out that gray steel is not just gray... for there are hundreds of shades of gray... and we had to get the exact one that the Pixar and Apple Boss wanted on his design... While working on this project, sometimes it seemed like we were taking one step forward, but then having to take 10 steps back... But my Dad and I were determined to take faster steps to keep up with the Pixar and Apple Boss's changes... On deadline day, when we first met the Pixar Boss at his Apple Headquarters while delivering the new design to him, I was still wondering if we had succeeded or failed... remembering the consequences of the latter...  But when I saw the Visionary Genius smile at what my Dad and I made for him, I knew we did okay... for we got asked back many more times until the new Pixar Headquarters was finished... again Dad was my savior... for I would never be able to make any of those Pixar deadlines without him.

After our Pixar deadline, I remembered how Dad loved Beethoven and Mozart, but had never been to an actual live concert... So to celebrate, I took him for the first time to San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall... they played Beethoven's 7th Symphony that night and I could still remember how moved he was with the performance ...  To see his face light up and knowing he got to enjoy his favorite piece of music was priceless Magic.

Time stops for no one and no thing... in fact, it seems like Time goes by faster when we add more years to our age... I've learned much from my Dad over the years that I worked with him. He's always about Heart & Soul, and about doing rather than talking... He loved to play with his grandson, Quinn and he knew that is what Life is all about...

Now it's April 2 , almost 2 weeks ago.... I was showing Dad photos of his new grandchildren:Diana and her husband Steve's twins: Caden and Haley who were borned near my Dad's birthday...As I was showing him in the hospital room where he was staying... I couldn't help but think of the pain and suffering he was going through... again I remember his sacrifice and his blood, sweat, tears he endured on behalf of my Mom, Diana, me, and the rest of the family... As Mom was trying to comfort him, I realize he had tears in his eyes.... but they were both tears of happiness and tears of sadness... Happiness for seeing the newborn twins but sadness for not being able to meet them and hold them for even just one Time...

For that April 2 was a very cold and sad day... because like that other cold and sad day in that train station in China 50 years ago, there in the hospital room, my Mom, sister Diana and I were slowly saying our last good-byes to my Dad... but it's my  Dad who is going on a long trip this time and we were there again to watch him wave good-by...

What does the name Mar stand for:

I learned that Life as a Mar is most importantly about Heart & Soul with Blood Sweat and Tears... Mar means Love, Hope, Devotion, Compassion, Sacrifice, Endearment, Dedication, Determination, Humility, and Gratitude...

For my Dad, these are not mere words... Like his big brother, my Uncle Jack... he lived these words and breathe them his entire Life...

I will always remember my Dad's sacrifice so I can have a better life in America... I will always remember his good Heart and I will always remember his good Soul...

For it is always:

Free to Dream... Dream to Free...
but it's always our Hearts & Souls that make us be...

"Those we love are never really lost to us...

We feel them in so many special ways...

through friends they always cared about....

and dreams they left behind,

in beauty that they added to our days...

in words of wisdom we still carry with us...

and memories that never will be gone...

Those we love are never really lost to us...

For everywhere their special love lives on..."

Love,

Doug

April 14, 2012

My Eulogy for Dad

Henry Mar

I didn’t know my father as well as I would have liked. I wish I knew him better.  I was two months old when we were separated and when I met him again, I was already seventeen and a freshman at UCLA. 

I remember traveling back to San Francisco the weekend of his arrival and meeting him at the busy San Francisco International Airport terminal with the rest of the family. I remember being excited and a bit wistful – wistful because so much of my childhood had been defined by the long wait for the moment when I would finally meet him and now I was no longer a child and no longer living at home. 

I remember standing back and watching as he broke through the crowd coming out of customs.  He looked much like the pictures he had sent, but even so, I was shocked by how thin and gaunt he was.  I remember how everyone rushed up to greet him, especially my mom, and he had this huge grin on his face when he came forward to greet me. I can’t remember if we shook hands or hugged, but I remember having these conflicted thoughts like, “wow, this is my dad. How exciting. I finally have a dad, but he’s a stranger. Trippy … ”

For the first seventeen years of my life, I knew my dad through his letters. Sometimes they were written in English. Sometimes in Chinese. My mother would translate his letters to us and they were always encouraging and upbeat as well as the usual extolling of Chinese work ethics – you know, study hard, listen to your mother, that sort of sentiment. When I was in the fourth grade, I told my teacher about how my dad was “stuck in China” and couldn’t come join the rest of the family in the states.  She was touched by my father’s story and encouraged me to send one of my school projects to him. It was a story I wrote about a school field trip, written and illustrated on construction paper and bound like a book. Nothing of note, but it was my first book, indeed the first story I had ever written. Thanks to my dad, it would not be my last.

As I grew older and entered junior high, my letters to him became a repository of complaints about all the things I was unhappy with, like how strict my mom and Uncle Jack were, how they wouldn’t let me have fun and hang out with friends.  You know, the usual “tweener” and teenie stuff that is “soooo important. Of course, I didn’t know that while I was writing to dad asking him to tell my mom to “chill out” and let me be a typical All-American kid, his letters were being intercepted and closely scrutinized for evidence that he and his family members were “westernized,” which in the eyes of the Gang of Four and their Red Guard is the worst possible offense. So while I was trying to be All-American, dad was being “re-educated.” 

It wasn’t until I was in film school doing research about the Cultural Revolution for my first screenplay that I learned what “re-education” really meant. As part of my research, I asked my dad about the Cultural Revolution, but he never wanted to talk about it. He probably felt those difficult years were best put behind him and forgotten rather than excavated and revisited.  He never talked about what happened to him with me, or my brother or even my mom, who only saw the faint scars remaining on his body. Increasingly curious about what made dad so tight-lipped, I joined Uncle Jack on one of his trips to China so I could interview my dad’s old friends and colleagues about his experiences during the Cultural Revolution. Our relatives hooked me up with dad’s best friend, Gum Sook, who also was one of Dad’s underlings when they worked together on the construction of a factory in central China.

It was Gum Sook who took me to the factory dormitories where Dad was imprisoned for a year and a half.  It was Gum Sook who took me to the very spot where the Red Guard had Dad kneel on broken glass while hoisting steel I-Beams on his shoulders. It was Gum Sook who told me how he was forced along with all of Dad’s other friends and colleagues at the factory to scream insults at him and denounce him as he stood at the front of a room silently taking it all in and most likely wearing one of those humiliating dunce cap we may have read about in history class. It was Gum Sook who told me how he would then quietly sneak food to Dad when the Red Guard was hell bent on starving him.  It was Gum Sook who shook his head sadly and recalled how my dad suffered all those years. For his family. Because of his family. Because we were “westerners.” The communists tried to “re-educate” him. They tried to break his spirit.  But in his steadfast fashion, Dad refused. He endured.

I remember hearing Gum Sook’s stories and seeing how his daughters spoke of my dad with such reverence. I remembered feeling a pang of jealousy thinking how well they knew him while my brother and I hardly did. But those stories I heard and the man I saw through their eyes brought me closer to the man my father had become.

I went home and finished my first screenplay for film school. It was entitled THE ONION SHED, a story about a little girl who worked in an onion shed, dreaming about being reunited with the father who was a political prisoner trapped in China during the Cultural Revolution. Sound familiar?  That screenplay garnered a Sony-Streisand writing fellowship and two other writing awards. Later, it evolved into a stage play I renamed THE CONFESSION that won a national playwriting contest and was staged in Iowa and Los Angeles. The nature of my writing changed over time, of course, as I tried to sell them rather than just win awards, but my passion for writing and storytelling never abated. It’s ironic that the father who was a stranger for much of our formative years was also the single most influential inspiration in shaping who Doug and I became.

Back in the fourth grade, the same teacher encouraged me to write letters to President Nixon to ask him to bring down the Iron Curtain. And, so I wrote to President Nixon, exhorting him to bring my daddy home to me.  So when Nixon went to China, I of course took credit for that historic event. In retrospect, it’s doubtful whether my letters even got to the White House, but back then, the experience convinced me of the power and influence of words on paper.

My dad didn’t say much in person, but he spoke volumes in his letters. He continued to write to me all through my college years and he came to life in those letters, expressing the hope and joy that he no longer seemed able to express in person. My dad gave me my greatest gift. I discovered writing when I was a young girl, long before I met my dad, because it was there in the writing that I found him. And now I will find him there again. 

The year my father arrived in the United States, my brother and I came home one weekend so we could spend time with Dad and get to know him. We still didn’t really know dad that well and he was more like a good-natured, agreeable, kind Uncle than our dad. But that weekend gave us memories of our dad that will last us a lifetime.

It was the weekend that the third installment of the all-time, industry changing blockbuster, STAR WARS, was released.  The only place it was playing in our area was in Monterey, but he happily agreed to accompany us even though we knew it would be crowded, crowded, crowded.  Indeed, the line wrapped around the four blocks surrounding the theater and we waited almost three hours to get in.  We were dizzy with excitement and dad gamely stood in line with us without a single complaint and was as excited as we were. We finally saw the movie and it was, of course, awesome. We came out of the theater buzzing about what a cool movie that was. In fact, I was so spellbound and excited that I blurted out, “Dad let’s go see it again!”  To our surprise, my dad responded “Okay!” And with a good-natured shrug, he got back in the two-hour line. Not one complaint.  After that, Doug and I thought dad was the coolest ever.  Right up until two weeks ago when Daddy breathed his last breath, Doug and I would periodically glimpse that happy-go-lucky kid-at-heart with the big, easy smile, even though that side of my dad had been increasingly shuttered by a lifetime of suffering and hardship. My cousins tell me that my dad was a gregarious, charismatic man before we left China. After we left, he talked less and no longer smiled. It was as though he had poured all that he had to say into his letters to us. I noticed that about him. He rarely spoke unless someone else initiated the conversation. Then he would light up and occasionally that big smile would remember how to find its way back to his face. I'm glad that Doug and I got to see that big, easy grin that magical Star Wars weekend so long ago.

Sometimes it seems that people who emigrate to the U.S. from other countries shrink to a shadow of who they truly are.  What they’re truly capable of. It’s a shame really that we can don different personas, and one that doesn’t fully engage the full potential of our being, simply because we are uprooted from familiar soil to one less familiar and fertile. This seemed to be the case with my father, who was revered and loved by friends and colleagues, and whose intellect and strength were admired attributes among those who knew and worked with him in China. Although my father was content with his life here, wanted to be with us - his family - and enjoyed his friendships, I sometimes wonder if he had to leave behind a large part of his Self to be here with us. Both the part that was so revered and the part that wound up so damaged.

My mother told me that shortly after he came here, his company in China begged him to return to his old job and offered him a position with perks that were enviably high in those days of China’s early modernization and development. At the time, dad was working at the assembly line putting together circuit boards in Silicon Valley.  He said “no.” His place was with his family. I always suspected that Dad’s heart was tugged in two different directions. He loved China. He missed the livelihood that gave him such pride and fulfillment. He was a “big boss” there with position and prestige. But his family was here and he chose us. I’ll always be grateful for that choice, that I was given this chance to know him.

So … I didn’t know my father as well as I would like. But what little I’ve gleaned suggests a complex portrait of a man with quiet grace, a kind soul, endless patience, and an unbeatable spirit and determination. I will never know everything I’d like to know about him. But do we ever really know our parents as much as we’d like? Do we take the time to excavate the interiors of their mind and heart when they’re with us?

In many ways, my dad was and remained a mystery to me right up to the end. But I know he suffered tremendously for me and my family. I know he was grateful that I cared to learn about the man he left behind in China and the man he came to be.  I know he loved me without question. I know he was proud to be my dad. I know I was proud that he was my dad. I know he gave me the means by which I can continue to discover and celebrate him, and all whom I love dear, through the writing. A passion and purpose that will carry me through a lifetime. What a great gift he bestowed upon me. And when it’s all said and done, that’s all I need to know.

So now we’re separated again, my dad from his family. But this time we’ve had the good fortune to have known and loved him and, someday when my journey is complete, we’ll reunite again. Until then, ease your mind and rest well, Daddy. I love you.

August 14, 2012

Struve and Laporte Funeral Chapel
Salinas, California